Ada: The Enchantress of Numbers

by Betty Alexandra Toole, Ed.D.

Ada Lovelace Biography

Ada Byron, Lady Lovelace, was one of the most picturesque characters in
computer history. August Ada Byron was born December 10, 1815 the
daughter of the illustrious poet, Lord Byron. Five weeks after Ada was
born Lady Byron asked for a separation from Lord Byron, and was awarded
sole custody of Ada who she brought up to be a mathematician and
scientist. Lady Byron was terrified that Ada might end up being a poet
like her father. Despite Lady Byron's programming Ada did not sublimate
her poetical inclinations. She hoped to be "an analyst and a
metaphysician". In her 30's she wrote her mother, if you can't give me
poetry, can't you give me "poetical science?" Her understanding of
mathematics was laced with imagination, and described in metaphors.

At the age of 17 Ada was introduced to Mary Somerville, a remarkable
woman who translated LaPlace's works into English, and whose texts were
used at Cambridge. Though Mrs. Somerville encouraged Ada in her
mathematical studies, she also attempted to put mathematics and
technology into an appropriate human context. It was at a dinner party
at Mrs. Somerville's that Ada heard in November, 1834, Babbage's ideas
for a new calculating engine, the Analytical Engine. He conjectured:
what if a calculating engine could not only foresee but could act on
that foresight. Ada was touched by the "universality of his ideas".
Hardly anyone else was.

Babbage worked on plans for this new engine and reported on the
developments at a seminar in Turin, Italy in the autumn of 1841. An
Italian, Menabrea, wrote a summary of what Babbage described and
published an article in French about the development. Ada, in 1843,
married to the Earl of Lovelace and the mother of three children under
the age of eight, translated Menabrea's article. When she showed Babbage
her translation he suggested that she add her own notes, which turned
out to be three times the length of the original article. Letters
between Babbage and Ada flew back and forth filled with fact and
fantasy. In her article, published in 1843, Lady Lovelace's prescient
comments included her predictions that such a machine might be used to
compose complex music, to produce graphics, and would be used for both
practical and scientific use. She was correct.

When inspired Ada could be very focused and a mathematical taskmaster.
Ada suggested to Babbage writing a plan for how the engine might
calculate Bernoulli numbers. This plan, is now regarded as the first
"computer program." A software language developed by the U.S. Department
of Defense was named "Ada" in her honor in 1979.

After she wrote the description of Babbage's Analytical Engine her life
was plagued with illnesses, and her social life, in addition to Charles
Babbage, included Sir David Brewster (the originator of the
kaleidoscope), Charles Wheatstone, Charles Dickens and Michael Faraday.
Her interests ranged from music to horses to calculating machines. She
has been used as a character in Gibson and Sterling's the Difference
Engine, shown writing letters to Babbage in the series " The Machine
that Changed the World" and I have gathered her letters and writings in
"Ada, The Enchantress of Numbers: A Selection from the Letters of Lord
Byron's Daughter and Her Description of the First Computer Though her
life was short (like her father, she died at 36), Ada anticipated by
more than a century most of what we think is brand-new computing.

Charles Dickens to Ada: Stop haunting me
When she was thirty-three, Ada spent some time in Brighton with Charles Dickens. Soon afterwards (18 February 1849), he wrote her that strange things were happening at his hotel. He wondered whether Ada was "haunting" him, and if so: "I hope you won't do so."
Three years later, Dickens visited Ada at her deathbed. He was one of the last non-family members, other than her physicians, to see her alive.

Timeline

Year

1641

Blaise Pascal develops one of the first calculating machines

1784

Augusta Mary Byron (Lord Byron's half sister) is born

1788

Lord Byron (Ada's father) is born

1791

Charles Babbage (Ada's closest friend) is born

1792

Anne Isabella (Annabella) Milbanke (Ada's mother) is born

1793

Start of the Napoleonic Wars

1804

J. M. Jacquard invents apparatus to automate looms

1805

William King (Ada's husband) is born

1811

The Luddites fight industrialization

1812

Lord Byron's maiden speech before Parliament Lord Byron's first major poetical work, Childe Harold, is published

1815

Lord Byron and Annabella Milbanke wed (January 2) Augusta Ada Byron is born in London (December 10) Battle of Waterloo and the end of the Napoleonic Wars Steamers on the Thames

Ada returns after a nine-month absence to her mathematical studiesL. F. Menabrea's description of the Analytical Engine is published in Switzerland (October)

1843

Ada's translation and Notes are published (August)

1844

Ada visits the Crosse household in late November

1850

Ada visits her father's ancestral home, Newstead Abbey

1851

The Great Exhibition, Queen Victoria's ball, and Derby Day

1852

Ada dies (November 27)

1860

Lady Byron dies (May 16)

1862

Byron, now the Viscount Ockham, dies

1871

Charles Babbage dies (October 18)

1890

Hollerith of the United States uses the punch card for sorting and tabulating information for the United States Census

1893

Lord Lovelace dies (December 29)

1931

Vannevar Bush of MIT builds the first "modern large analog" computer

1946

ENIAC - First digital computer built

1974

Proposal by military for a common high-order computer language

1975

First iteration of the language called Strawman, second iteration called Woodenman

1978

A winning language selected after extensive review

1980

Language named "Ada" in her honor

1984

"Ada" becomes a trademark of the United States Department of Defense

Charles Babbage on Ada's notes:
"If you are as fastidious about the acts of your friendship as you are about those of your pen, I much fear I shall equally lose your friendship and your Notes. I am very reluctant to return your admirable & philosophic 'Note A.' Pray do not alter it . . . All this was impossible for you to know by intuition and the more I read your notes the more surprised I am at them and regret not having earlier explored so rich a vein of the noblest metal."